You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Can you make the timedemo and / or methodology you used available? And if you need a GeForce 285 GTX, 9800 GX2, 9800 GTX, or a 460 SE to complete your set, just let me know ;).

"Even the latest AMD Catalyst 12.11 beta driver doesn’t seem to work with my Radeon 4890, so I had to stay with Ubuntu 12.04 default proprietary driver. Also, there is no option for open source ATI drivers either — they don’t meet Steam’s minimum requirements. So, if you own a “legacy” AMD GPU, you have to replace it by another modern GPU as soon as possible…"

Awesome Article and benchmark! It's impressive as there is an ATI card on top of the chart, I'm a bit away about hardware nowadays, Do you think you got any impact in speed because of drivers?

Thanks!

Thank you :D In a matter of fact there is no an ATI card o top of the chart but a combination of using two Radeon HD 6970. The CFX means to CrossFireX, which is the hardware implementation for having two exact same Radeon GPUs working together on the same box.

Drivers-wise there is a difference about 10-15 FPS compared to Windows (but DirectX). This difference is not important but only to mediocore GPUs, especially when they score roughly 40 FPS.

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Can you make the timedemo and / or methodology you used available? And if you need a GeForce 285 GTX, 9800 GX2, 9800 GTX, or a 460 SE to complete your set, just let me know ;).

Thank you very much for your kind words sir :) I would gladly accept your most generous offer but I think there will be way too expensive to ship all these GPUs in Greece. I used to work for Guru3D.com and VR-Zone as a volunteer editor, and during my time there I've met some nice people who are in charge of hardware reviews/sampling in Europe region. I put my faith that they will send me some samples to review hardware for Linux and thus make UbuntuXtreme a great place for Linux hardware enthusiasts.

Thank you all for your comments, currently I am testing GeForce GTX 650 that my friend Antonis gave me to play with this week. The card is manufactured by MSI. Probably next week there will be a new article ;)

I will try some HD4000 benchmarks too, but I guess I have to find an Ivy Bridge processor first. Duh

You write that SSAA "does the same as the MSAA does". This is not entirely correct.MSAA will only render some buffers in a higher resolution, while SSAA will render all buffers in a higher resolution.Also, is blur in Photoshop really the same as anti-aliasing? AA is not just a blur-filter, it renders the picture in a higher resolution and down-scales it.The last frame of this animated image[i1.wp.com] is garbled for me.

Hi panos! Thank you for taking your time for such an exhaustive research with all that hardware and options. Here's one small, hopefully constructive, feedback:

In the "How to setup CPU Governor indicator" section, screenshot shows highlighting "On demand", which is exactly what you don't want. If one reads the text carefully, it describes that powersaving should be off. But I guess most people will see your screenshot and select "on demand". I would recommend that that screenshot is remade with "performance" highlighted.

The whole benchmarks are FAKE. For at least 2 reasonsa) SS3 does not have got a reproduceable benchmark modeb) i have got 2 hd 5670 and i am still searching for a game that runs faster with CF on Linux. That CF would work for SS3 with this scaling is completely unbelievable

Yes z33ky, you're right. I didn't want to delve into too much detail explaining what exactly does MSAA and SSAA, that's the reason why I said they are almost the same. Just because what Tom and Jerry would think looking both screenshots -- without knowing all the background details about buffer and rendering.

BTW the animated gif seems ok if you open it in another tab but for some unknown reason doesn't work properly in Wordpress blogspot. I am searching on it...

+1I'm curious about the methodology since SS3 does not support timedemo (demo recording to be exact).

That was the hard part because of lack of a timedemo I had to play the game again and again in order to be sure that the final average FPS is representing this GPU, in my system, with my settings, in Into the Spider's Nest level. That's why it took me about 3 week to complete all the measurements. Wayyy to much time consuming. Thankfully my next target is Team Fortress and yes sir, there is a timedemo utility in there ;)

Okay here's the procedure you asked for:

STEP 1: Fix the comma bug in keyboard layout in order to run the benchmark you have to run from console (`) the command bmkStartBenchmarking(start,duration) where start and duration are integer numerical values. The problem is that there is a bug with comma in console mode, thus go to ~/Steam/SteamApps/common/Serious Sam 3/Temp/RCon/History and insert the command (with comma) in the end of file Local.txt. The go back in game and press Up Arrow

STEP 2: Load the game's level "Into the Spider's Nest"

STEP 3: Start benching while playing for 5 minutes.bmkStartBenchmarking(3,300)

Write down the results.

STEP 4: Restart the game

STEP 5: Load the game's level "Into the Spider's Nest".

STEP 6: Start benching while playing for 5 minutes.bmkStartBenchmarking(3,300)

trying to simulate the previous gameplay.

write down the results.

STEP 7: Compare these two benchmark runs.

If the results don't differ more than 5 FPS average, do the math: (First Bench + Second Bench) /2 = Final FPS score

I use an 2500K overclocked at 4.5 GHz, which is a Sandy Bridge processor using Intel HD 3000 graphics -- some may say it is outdated due to the HD4000 -- now that new Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs come along with it. If I get an Ivy Bridge processor then I could get you some scores. But just for the reference, all these IGPU are considered to be for entry-gaming, not even mediocre settings.

The whole benchmarks are FAKE. For at least 2 reasonsa) SS3 does not have got a reproduceable benchmark modeb) i have got 2 hd 5670 and i am still searching for a game that runs faster with CF on Linux. That CF would work for SS3 with this scaling is completely unbelievable

a) I used bmkStartBenchmarking(start,duration) function. That's why I had to run the same benchmark with the same GPU twice in order to get the average FPS. It may be not be zero point exact, but it's okay. Next time I will bench with Team Fortress where there is a timedemo function. Where's the FAKE on that ?

Don't so much accurate, you may say. Yes, true.Fake results, you say. No, sorry but my results are real.

b) Well I am not using 2x5670, but I am using 2x6970 which is A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT architecture thanks to CAYMAN XT. In fact Cayman GPUs are proven to be so good in working together that AMD developed another dual-core GPU called HD 6990 which is in fact 2x6970 into a single PCB. If you like, take look at my last year's review for CrossFireX performance depending on DirectX9, DirectX10, DireftX11, Tessellation, MSAA and different resolutions. http://www.insomnia.gr/reviews/_/hardware/videocards/παρουσίαση-radeon-6970-και-radeon-6950-r20?pg=30 (it's in greek language so please use google translate)

I use a pair of HD 6970 using CaymanXT architecture. These cards work so good together that AMD decided to make them a sandwich and release AMD Radeon HD6990.

Just for your information I used to make reviews for: Intel, OCZ, AMD, nVIDIA, G.Skill, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Corsair, Coolermaster, BitFenix, Xigmatek and other hardware manufacturers. I don't want to show off, but I am forced to in order to defend my integrity here. If you still don't believe me, please take a look at my linkedin profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/drpaneas

I love linux, I use it for ten years now, and today (thank God) Valve is trying to change things here for the better. Better drivers, better support, better hardware, better gaming etc. That's why I've made Ubuntu Xtreme, in order to help and support this movement. I am not earning any money from it, but paying the hosting instead. So if you think that I am posting false and fake stuff then don't visit UbuntuXtreme.

Phoronix tests with obsolete gams, like nexuiz, openarena, Doom3, Unreal Tourname etc. How do you expect to see scaling in there? You have to use Unigine Heaven 3.0 and play with settings in order to find out what's happeing with AMD, Linx, and Crossfirex. But just using games from 1998-2004 era and benching with 2012 modern hardware, no verdicts for me.

Things are in BETA PHASE, so strange things might happen. Don't judge too easily, but try to figure out what's wrong. That has been told, *please* be more careful next time you are about accuse someone.